I’ve attended three mayoral forums so far, the DC for Democracy and the Board of Trade Democrats only forums as an audience member, and the ACLU forum as a candidate.

One funny thing about the forums is that if the group has money most candidates show up, and if it doesn’t only half the candidates do. Mayor Gray skipped the ACLU, Andy Shallal skipped the ACLU and the Board of Trade (someone told me he had a family emergency), Muriel Bowser skipped the ACLU and DC for Democracy, Jack Evans skipped DC for Democracy, Carlos Allen skipped the Board of Trade, where there was a seat and name card waiting for him, but I think he may not have known he was invited.

Upcoming forums that include me are the March 10 DC Statehood Committee forum at Martin Luther King library and the neighborhood forum for Takoma Park, DC and surrounding neighborhoods.

Here are the five contradictions I’ve noticed repeated by most of the Democrats:

DC Democratic Party contradiction 1 – Virginia and Maryland suburbanites come to DC and take our good jobs, and we can’t tax their incomes – so we are going to use DC taxpayer dollars to subsidize their metro fares so they can get here easier.DC Democratic Party contradiction 2 (Tommy Wells edition) – we want urban planning where DC is a walkable city and everyone can walk within 5 minutes to school or work, AND we want more tax dollars spent on metro so employers can all relocate to Georgetown while workers are segregated in Anacostia, with the taxpayer footing the transportation bill.DC Democratic Party contradiction 3 – We want to make DC tax rates on commercial property, business income, etc etc competitive with Virginia to keep jobs here, AND we can’t name a single program or agency we would cut or eliminate.DC Democratic Party contradiction 4 (everybody but Tommy Wells edition) – we want to decriminalize pot, in part to end the huge racial disparity in arrests (8 times as likely for black pot users – weirdly twice the national average disparity of 3.7 times as likely!), but we want to keep it a crime or have a high fine for smoking on the street or in public, as black youth are more likely to do than whites.DC Democratic Party contradiction 5 – the number of homeless living on the streets in DC is rising rapidly, with hypothermia for the homeless, nuisance and crime for everyone else, and hygiene issues for both, AND our Democratic solution to this is to build more and nicer taxpayer funded housing for homeless people who come to DC, without collaboration with Maryland or Virginia, so we can import all the homeless from Richmond to Baltimore and beyond.